Food Part 1

This is one of the items I carried in the inside pocket of my flak vest in the off chance that a sympathetic Iraqi would want to sell me a chicken.  During the initial weeks of the invasion our infantry units moved so fast that the supply convoys carrying our chow and water were often left behind; unfortunately that meant that we usually ate once a day, and sometimes even had to split MRE's with our fellow Marines.  A combination of desert heat, carrying a full combat load, little sleep, and poor nutrition is one of the best diet weight loss plans I know of!  I remember one day Doc Lowry and I were sitting in out fighting hole and we decided to split one of our precious MRE's.  It was one of the hamburger (and I use that term loosely) ones so along with half a patty and a piece of "Russian bread" (as I always called it) we also got eight combo pretzels each.  I'll never forget that; in fact, at times it got so bad that we even ate the Charms candy that came in the condiment packet- that's when you know you're starving!  Anyway, I drew this diagram on the back of an MRE main meal box, writing right to left, as that is how Arabic is read. 

Red Bull

Sometimes you see things in a combat zone you don't ever see in war movies...

I remember one night in particular.   We were moving up Highway 1 (I think) in our AAV's and I was standing in the open hatch of the rear of the AAV; it afforded the opportunity to stretch my legs and watch all the commotion that ensued as the many different Marine units made their way north towards Baghdad.

As we sped by one of the dozens of settlements that border the main highways I noticed a group of Iraqi civilians gathered near a large blackened cow carcass lying in front of one of their businesses.  What was surreal was that the cow had somehow been partially gutted and flames were licking their way through the empty body cavity of the cow and up between the ribs and pieces of skin, like a macabre paper lantern.  We had seen burnt bodies on the side of the road, burnt vehicles and buildings, but that was the first burnt cow I saw, particularly the first one that looked like it got hit by a TOW missile.  I don't know how the cow died, or how it caught on fire, but briefly witnessing that scene caused me to realize in a powerful way that there was nothing exempt from being destroyed during the invasion campaign.   

Fear of Dying

There were only two things I was afraid of during my tour in Iraq: accidentally getting blown up by a coalition aircraft (it happened several times during the first Gulf War), and getting shot by a sniper while going to and from the head (outhouse).

Doc Lowry

This is a picture of one of my closest friends in Iraq, Nick Lowry, also known affectionately as "Doc".  It was taken on top of the Right Side Bank in Diwaniyah, about a mile or so from Camp Got Some.  He was 2nd squads Corpsman and joined us when we arrived in Kuwait before the invasion.  Like all Marines in a small unit setting, we were initially skeptical about this outsider as he was yet unproven to be able to "suck it up" and hang with us grunts in the field.  The most common problem was when our unit would get a Corpsman from a Navy hosptial or from the Battalion Aid Station who had spent too much time "in the rear" and not in the field.  This usually resulted in them falling out on long humps or foot patrols, especially if they were carrying packs.  

Doc Lowry soon proved to be more than able to hang with 2nd squad.  Friendly and soft spoken, Doc won my respect as a friend after one of our many training evolutions in Kuwait.  Our squad had just finished practicing immediate action drills; rushing towards the enemy, gettind down in the prone, firing, getting up, sprinting, getting in the prone, firing, getting up- repeating the process until the threat was eliminated...  Doc Lowry was rejoining us as we conducted our post training brief; he was no doubt as tired as the rest of us and could have walked to our group but instead Doc was in a full out sprint, wearing combat gear and carrying his 1st aid pack which weighed at least 40 lbs.  We all watched Doc as he sprinted several hundred meters towards us and finally stopped at our little huddle, panting for breath with a wide grin on his face.  This Doc had what it took. 

Doc further proved himself during our subsequent tour in Iraq: fighting in our first ambush against the Iraqi army, lending me his M-16 when my SAW jammed in the middle of a firefight against a unit of foreign jihad fighters from Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia, as well as Doc conducting countless patrols with 2nd squad throughout Diwaniyah.     

The Pharmacutical Plant

Today I was thinking about our time north of Baghdad in a city called Samarra.  Our company had been tasked with searching and securing a large government "Ministry of Somthing" campus which included a very tall office building, probably five stories tall.  Everything was pretty much abandoned at the compound as the war had been going on for nearly three weeks already.  Our squad made entry to the office building and found ourselves at the beginning of a very long hallway lined with office doors.  The doors were solid wood with heavy knobs and, of course, they were installed to swing into the hall as opposed to swinging into the office, which is what we would have preferred.  See, if they had swung inward we would have been able to "mule kick" them until they opened or have used one our breeching tools.  Faced with an entire hall of these doors on the first floor alone didn't appeal to me, particularly when we didn't know what (or who) was behind them.  I was standing perpendicular just to the side of one of the first doors we encountered with my squad leader, Sgt. Jay Landis, and a couple others as we contemplated how to make entry into the room when Sgt. Landis raised his M-16 and fired two shots in quick succession into the doorknob.  I can still hear the shots ringing in my head as I write this, I was facing parallel to his rife barrel and muzzle from about three feet away and the muzzle blast hit me right in the face.  It must have been a purely involuntary response on my part, but I remember opening my mouth wide and closing my eyes.  Luckily no shrapnel from the 5.56 rounds or the doorknob hit me in the face; after we made entry we did a hasty search of the office, found nothing of any consequence and moved back out into the hall.

Shortly thereafter we nixed the idea of searching and clearing the rest of the offices in the building and moved on foot into the rest of the campus.  As we patrolled throught the campus towards several large warehouses and auxillary buildings I heard an automatic mini-gun firing in the distance, either mounted on a AH-1 Cobra or more than likely on a UH-1 Huey.  The rate of fire was so high it made one continuous buzzing sound as it rained down lead on its objective.  We began a systematic search of the warehouses; it was pitch black inside as there was no electricity, we used our flashlights and were surprised to find stacks upon stacks of shrink wrapped pallets containing various types of medicine bottles and supplies.  After clearing several offices at the rear of the warehouses we made our way to to the front again, cutting into the pallets and spilling open the boxes of medicine bottles onto the floor, at first to investigate what the pallets held, then just to satiate the desire to destroy somthing we percieved to have belonged to the enemy with no restraint or fear of consequence.  Our platoon sergeant, Staff Sergeant Casey, put a quick halt to our wanton destruction.  We were always told from boot camp on up that Marines always left any given place cleaner than when they arrived there.  Unfortunately we didn't always live up to that creed.  Lesson learned.

SAW Range



A field expedient SAW range outside Diwaniyah, near a brick making compound.  Lt. Heath, Derek Jimenez, and others.  Practicing sustained bursts of fire, no less than five rounds per burst.


Mars over Iraq

In 2003, Mars made it's closest pass near earth in recorded history.  It was really easy to see from our camp, "Camp Got Some"- a play on words of 3/5's motto during the war- "Get Some".  Camp Got Some was an abandoned Iraqi army base (and I use that term loosely), outside the city of Diwaniyah.  In the late evening Mars was brilliant, illuminated in the dusky red light.  We would sit outside our squad bays at night when the air was a bit cooler; smoking cigarettes, and talking about anything but where we were and what we were doing.  I think it was a bit easier to see Mars since we were outside city limits so there was no light pollution to interfere.  Funny, Mars is the Roman god of war.  Go figure.

Line of Departure

I remember crossing the Kuwait/Iraq border in the middle of the night on March 18th, 2003.  It was dark in the track we were riding in.  I remember looking through my night vision scope and seeing a burned out Iraqi tank on our port side several hundred meters out.  I wondered if it had been there for awhile or if another unit had made contact with it.  I had a full combat load plus my SAW,  and wore a mopp suit, flak, and an LBV with grenades, ammo, night vision goggles, and a buttpack full of gear.  We had a rifle squad plus two assaultmen from weapons platoon all geared up.  Man, it was crowded in that track...

Recollections

Recollections of Iraq is primarily for me to record my recollections of my time in Iraq as a Marine Corps infantryman, from Feburary 2003 to September 2003.  The memories from Iraq often pop into my head at random times and in no particular order, and that is part of the reason I want to blog them; the major details of operations and the overall mission of our unit is engrained in my mind and fairly chronological, it's the personal interactions and day to day events that are so fleeting I'm often tempted to wonder "Did that really happen?".  Such is the way my Iraq War memories come and go; here for an instant and then gone again.  This blog means to preserve them.